The Revenge of Ron and Rin
All the Gray Viscount’s people stared at Jae-hyun with eyes full of tension. They had seen him dragged in by Ron and Rin, the brother and sister who nursed a grudge against Andrew, yet they all knew the final word would belong to Jae-hyun himself.
No black mage, no matter how powerful, could ever stand taller than the Demon King.
They watched him silently, waiting to see exactly what sentence he would pass.
Jae-hyun spoke first.
“First, every knight of the Gray Viscount’s house is dead. And there is no reason for servants who are not of your blood to keep breathing, is there?”
The cooks, the mages, and all the families they had hired—none of them were true Gray Viscount blood, only temporary employees—grew deathly pale at the words.
“P-please spare us!” one mage cried. “I’ll swear loyalty to a black mage! Just let me live and serve!”
“We’ll all become citizens of the Dark Empire and serve the Demon King!” the head cook begged. “Our cooking skills are actually quite good. Please allow us and our families to live and remain loyal!”
They had learned quickly to plead for life rather than mercy. Those who had begged for forgiveness would have died instantly; their souls would have been dragged into the hands of some demon and torn apart in ways no mortal could imagine.
Jae-hyun accepted their offer without hesitation.
The moment he did, the screams began.
“Uwaaaah!”
“Kuaah!”
“Aaaah!”
Every mage and cook, every servant and family member, howled in agony before their bodies started to emit thick demonic energy. The mages turned into full black mages; the servants and their families became part of the Forces of Darkness.
Jae-hyun had inspected the crimes they had committed with the eyes of the Demon King, yet none of them were guilty of the freezing tricks that had sent shivers down his spine. They were simply servants. He accepted them into the Dark Empire without further punishment.
The prison gates swung open and freedom at last reached them.
The children had been left with one of their parents, but the cells were designed for one person each. When the doors opened, only those locked inside could escape.
This prison had been built by the Holy Kingdom of Astraea in the old capital of Pantheon, not by the Demon King. Jae-hyun had granted them solitary cells as a small mercy. It was the only way to prevent prisoners from killing one another in the common areas.
“Now go out there and live naturally,” Jae-hyun told them.
Their existence here was over.
The moment the gates opened, every one of them bowed their heads to Jae-hyun, then hurried outside. From that day forward they would live ordinary lives among the people of the Dark Empire.
And the only ones left in the prison were the Gray Viscount’s own family of forty-two members—men, women, old and young alike—shaking in terror.
Jae-hyun’s voice cut through the silence once more.
“You each have a stage prepared for your judgment.”
Then, with a single gesture, the ceiling suddenly came alive.
Thousands of razor-sharp blades began spinning at terrifying speed, their cutting power radiating like a blade aimed straight at the heart of the world.
The room filled with an unnatural dread that made the air itself feel heavy.
Thirty-eight of the Gray Viscount family were already seated in specially prepared chairs. Their fingers were frozen, their mouths moving only to beg, their entire bodies locked in a single, helpless spasm.
“From this moment on, I will interrogate you. If any of you lies, you will be punished. Feel what that punishment is like by trying to lie. You may then experience it firsthand and have your conscience cleansed.”
The air in the room grew thick with tension. Jae-hyun had dragged them straight from the prison into the torture chamber.
Gray Viscount himself and Andrew lay on the floor with both hands outstretched. Emily and Scarlett—Andrew’s wives and the daughters of minor nobles who had once come to serve—had been bound separately because their beauty was so exceptional that Jae-hyun had decided to save them as future prey for the demon horde.
“Gray Viscount,” Jae-hyun began, voice calm and cold, “I heard you were the lord of the Gray Viscount’s domain. Yet you abandoned twenty thousand citizens, and even though you yourselves slipped out through the back gate, you still had the city gates sealed shut and the entire city frozen solid so no one else could escape. Did you really choose to save yourselves even if it meant sacrificing all twenty thousand citizens?”
“Y-yes! I-I wanted to live!”
The Gray Viscount answered with desperate honesty, and the words were true. No punishment followed.
“Very well. Let me ask you again. How do you feel about Ron and Rin?”
“I… I think they are noble.”
The instant the lie left his mouth, the spinning blades descended.
“Uwaaaah!”
The Gray Viscount’s scream echoed through the chamber as the blades sliced toward his left hand.
“How unfortunate. You lied, and punishment followed.”
Jae-hyun’s voice remained perfectly level while the blades continued their deadly dance. The Gray Viscount howled in agony as he understood exactly what would happen next.
“Relax. I will not cut off all your fingers at once. I will take them one by one so you can truly feel what it is like.”
“Waaaaah! Wait! Please give me a moment!”
The old noble, tears streaming down his face despite his age, begged desperately. Jae-hyun only smiled coldly.
“Then you should not have lied.”
He watched the Gray Viscount’s left hand twitch on its own, stretching toward the descending blades. A fresh scream tore from his throat as he thrust his index finger forward.
“Nooo! Spare me! Please spare me, Demon King! I’ll do anything! Anything at all! Waaaaah!!!”
Beside him, Ron and Rin exchanged quiet, satisfied smiles.
“Ron, what do you think will happen to this guy once all his fingers are gone?”
“I think we should try poking the blade tips inside the stumps. It’ll look pretty interesting every time he twitches his hand.”
“Mm. We’ll have to embed the blades deep inside the severed areas and secure them first. Shall we test it?”
The conversation sounded almost playful to the screaming Gray Viscount, as if the siblings were mocking his fear. And they were.
Gray Viscount was too consumed by the agony in his own hand to notice.
The spinning blade finally touched the index finger.
The monstrous cutting power did not hesitate. One clean slice.
“Uwaaaaaah!!!”
The Gray Viscount’s scream shattered the air as blood sprayed in every direction. Before the pain had even begun to ebb, the blade was already moving toward his middle finger.
“Uwaaaaaah!!!”
The middle finger fell with a sickening thud. Blood sprayed again. The Gray Viscount could only keep screaming.
This was pain he had never felt in his entire life as a noble who had lived comfortably his whole life. It was unbearable.
He could not even faint. The bleeding was so severe his body should have been in shock, yet his mind remained strangely clear, every cut feeling like a brand.
The blade now hovered above his ring finger.
“Waaaaah! Wait! Please, I beg you!”
The Gray Viscount’s voice cracked with sobs. He had lived his entire life on the backs of the weak; he had never once imagined he himself could be reduced to this.
But Jae-hyun simply waited.
The ring finger was severed next. Blood continued to pour. The Gray Viscount’s mind, once so clear, now swam with agony. Yet still he screamed, still he begged.
The blade turned toward his thumb.
“Uwaaaaaah!!!”
The thumb was gone.
Five times.
Five times in a row he had felt his fingers torn away.
His left hand now dangled by a single stump, blood pooling beneath him, and he could only want to faint.
He could not faint. The pain was so vivid he felt every millimeter of torn flesh, every spray of hot blood, every desperate heartbeat.
Jae-hyun leaned down slightly, voice still calm.
“Now, do you still feel like lying?”
A desperate cry rose from the entire room.
“No!” everyone screamed at once.
Gray Viscount’s voice shook so violently he could barely speak, yet he still poured every ounce of strength into making himself heard above the rest.
Jae-hyun smiled faintly.
“Then let me ask the next question. Gray Viscount, how do you feel about Ron and Rin now?”
This time he answered honestly.
“Ron is nothing but a lowly black mage. As for Rin… that girl looks so deliciously firm, far more appealing than my own mother. Even though she is just a commoner, if she had not become one of the Demon King’s subordinates, I would have taken her whether she was a virgin or a married woman.”
“Everyone thinks commoners are worthless?”
“Of course. Commoners are filth. They exist only to die for their noble masters.”
“Twenty thousand citizens pushed into a meat grinder, and you ran away with your life and left them to die. You feel no guilt?”
“Guilt? Of course not. Replenishing a population of twenty thousand is difficult anyway, so we’re already in a bind. But they died for their lords, didn’t they? They died a glorious death. The weak should be happy we nobles are here to save them.”
The words tumbled out in a rush, the fear of losing every remaining finger driving all sense from his mind.
Ron and Rin exchanged disgusted glances, but Gray Viscount was too busy glancing at Jae-hyun with pure terror to notice.
Jae-hyun turned his gaze to Andrew.
“And now, Andrew. I have a question for you.”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Tell me everything you did to Ron and Rin’s parents here. Especially to Ron and Rin’s mother. Describe it in detail, and tell me exactly what happened to her.”
Andrew’s voice shook, but he began to speak.
“That filthy commoner… I was so sick of seeing a commoner woman with such an incredible beauty as his wife. Even though she was just a commoner, she was so beautiful it made my eyes sting. I searched the entire continent and still believed she was top ten. I wanted her in my hands immediately.”
He swallowed hard.
“So I framed her husband as a black mage and had him executed. The villagers obeyed my orders so easily it was almost too easy. Then, for the next thirteen years, I had that woman—Estia—every single day. She looked a little broken in the mind, but her body was so tight and firm. I kept her perfectly clean and used her whenever I wanted. Even though her mind was gone, her instincts were still strong; she could suck me so well…”
Andrew’s eyes were distant as he recalled the memory.
His own father’s fingers being cut off one by one had obviously driven him to speak the truth. Every filthy detail spilled out.
“And I kept my wife Emily in check too, but she could never compare to Estia’s perfect tightness…”
His voice grew softer, almost dreamy.
“…and the way she sucked…”
Gray Viscount’s mutilated hand lay twitching on the floor, blood soaking the stone beneath it. The room reeked of copper and terror.
Ron and Rin stood side by side, smiling with satisfaction.
The revenge had only just begun.